More UI students are turning to the Crisis Center this year.

Approximately 320 UI students received groceries from the Johnson County Crisis Center in fiscal 2009, a 33 percent increase over last year. Officials say that trend is continuing.

In addition to the increase of students, the Crisis Center is also seeing an increase in overall demand. At the end of July, the center served 763 families each week, said Sarah Benson Witry, the program director for the Crisis Center’s food bank and emergency assistance.

Across the country, food banks are experiencing a similar surge. A recent study by Feeding America — which owns more than 200 food banks across the United States — found that 99 percent of participating hunger-relief charities reported a significant increase in demand from 2008 to 2009.

Even with this large increase, Benson Witry said she feels there is still a stigma attached to receiving aid.

“There is this idea that there is something wrong because they need help, but it is really a normal thing,” she said.

This stereotype can be just as bad for students seeking assistance as it is for community members, she said.

“People get this idea that if students are coming in to get our services, it is because they made bad decision and not because they have a legitimate need,” Benson Witry said.

There are many reasons students would have legitimate needs, she said.

“We certainly see some grad students who have families and a lot of people to support, and those stipends just aren’t quite cutting it,” she said.

The Crisis Center works with a small staff of employees and a larger staff of volunteers, many of whom are students themselves.

“I started volunteering for one of my classes, and I found it was just as easy to volunteer on my own time, without course credit,” UI senior Kacey Larsen said as she packed groceries into brown paper bags on Wednesday afternoon inside the center’s pantry.

The Crisis Center has also seen a growing population of students using its Crisis Line, a 24-hour service people can call for short-term crisis counseling.

UI students now make up roughly 10 percent of the callers, said John Shean, a crisis intervention plan coordinator.

Shean said people typically call with relationship and monetary issues, but the busiest and most troubling time for students is typically around finals.

“In April and May, we will see a spike in suicidal tendency,” Shean said. “We see a lot of relationships ending and people graduating who are not sure what they are going to do.”

With the economic downturn and population growth, Benson Witry said, she thinks the increase will continue for a while longer.

But more business at the center means there are more hungry people.

“I really hope that as the economy recovers this increase slows down,” Benson Witry said.